The Emperor is presented with prisoners of the campaign to pacify rebels in Xinjiang at the Wu-men in 1828

The Emperor with his empress, imperial consorts and children in a palace courtyard

The Emperor with his children

The Emperor reviewing his guards at the Palace of Peking

The Daoguang Emperor (Tao-kuang Emperor; Chinese: 道光帝; pinyin: Dàoguāng Dì; Wade–Giles: Tao4-kuang1 Ti4; Manchu: ᡩᠣᡵᠣ ᡝᠯᡩᡝᠩᡤᡝ, Doro Eldengge Hūwangdi; 16 September 1782 – 25 February 1850) was the eighth emperor of the ManchuQing dynasty and the sixth Qing emperor to rule over China, from 1820 to 1850. His reign was marked by "external disaster and internal rebellion," that is, by the First Opium War, and the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion which nearly brought down the dynasty. The historian Jonathan Spence characterizes Daoguang as a “well meaning but ineffective man," who promoted officials who "presented a purist view even if they had nothing to say about the domestic and foreign problems surrounding the dynasty." [1]

He was born in the Forbidden City, Beijing, and was given the name Mianning (Mien-ning; Chinese: 綿寧). It was later changed into Minning (Min-ning; Chinese: 旻寧; Manchu: ᠮᡳᠨ ᠨᡳᠩMin ning) when he became emperor: the first character of his private name was changed from Mian (Mien; 綿) to Min (旻) so as to avoid the relatively common character 'Mian'. This novelty was introduced by his grandfather the Qianlong Emperor who thought it inappropriate to use a common character in the emperor's private name due to the long-standing practice of naming taboo.

He was the second (but eldest legitimate) son of Yongyan (永琰), who became the Jiaqing Emperor in 1796. His mother, the principal wife of Yongyan, was Lady Hitara of the (Manchu) Hitara clan, who became empress when Jiaqing ascended the throne in 1796. She is known posthumously as Empress Xiaoshurui (孝淑睿皇后).

Mianning was well liked by his grandfather the Qianlong Emperor and frequently accompanied the elderly emperor on hunting trips. On one such trip at the age of nine he successfully hunted a deer which greatly amused Qianlong. In 1813, while a prince, Mianning also played a vital role in repelling and killing White Lotus invaders who stormed the Forbidden City. This action earned Mianning important merits in securing his claim for the throne.

In September 1820, at the age of 38, Mianning inherited the throne after his father the Jiaqing Emperor died suddenly of unknown causes, becoming the first Qing emperor who was the eldest legitimate son of his father. Now known as the Daoguang Emperor, he inherited a declining empire with Westerners encroaching upon the borders of China. Daoguang had been emperor for six years when the exiled heir to the Khojas, Jahangir Khoja attacked Xinjiang from Kokand. By the end of 1826, the former Qing cities of Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, and Yangihissar had all fallen to the rebels.[2][3] After a friend betrayed him in March 1827, Khoja was sent to Beijing in an iron litter and subsequently executed,[4] while the Qing regained control of their lost territory.

During Daoguang's reign, China experienced major problems with opium, which was imported into China by British merchants. Opium had started to trickle into China during the reign of his great grandfather Emperor Yongzheng but was limited to approximately 200 chests annually. By the time of Emperor Qianlong's reign, this amount had increased to 1000 chests, 4000 chests by Jiaqing's era and more than 30,000 chests during Daoguang's reign.

He issued many edicts against opium in the 1820s and 1830s, which were carried out by Commissioner Lin Zexu. Lin Zexu's effort to halt the spread of opium in China led directly to the First Opium War. With the development of the Opium War, Lin was made a scapegoat and the Daoguang emperor removed Lin's authority and banished him to Yili. Meanwhile in the Himalayas, the Sikh Empire attempted an occupation of Tibet but was defeated in the Sino-Sikh war (1841–1842). On the coasts, technologically and militarily inferior to the European powers, China lost the war and surrendered Hong Kong by way of the Treaty of Nanking in August 1842.

In 1811 a clause sentencing Europeans to death for spreading Catholicism had been added to the statute called "Prohibitions Concerning Sorcerers and Sorceresses" (禁止師巫邪術) in the Great Qing Code.[5] Protestants hoped that the Chinese government would discriminate between Protestantism and Catholicism, since the law mentioned the latter by name, but after Protestant missionaries gave Christian books to Chinese in 1835 and 1836, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives" in Canton who had supplied them with books. [6][page needed]

Daoguang died on 25 February 1850, at the Old Summer Palace (圓明園), 8 km/5 miles northwest of the walls of Beijing. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son. Daoguang failed to understand the intention or determination of the Europeans, or the basic economics of a war on drugs. Although the Europeans were outnumbered and thousands of miles away from logistical support in their native countries, they could bring far superior firepower to bear at any point of contact along the Chinese coast. The Manchu court was highly dependent on the continued flow of taxes from southern China via the Grand Canal, which the British expeditionary force easily cut off at Zhenjiang (Chenkiang/Chinkiang). Daoguang ultimately had a poor understanding of the British and the industrial revolution that Britain and Western Europe had undergone, preferring to turn a blind eye to the rest of the world. It was said that Daoguang did not even know where Britain was located in the world. His thirty-year reign introduced the initial onslaught by western imperialism and foreign invasions that would plague China, in one form or another, for the next one hundred years.

He was interred in the Muling (慕陵 – meaning "Tomb of longing", or "Tomb of admiration") mausoleum, which is part of the Western Qing Tombs (清西陵), 120 kilometers/75 miles southwest of Beijing.

Jane Kate Leonard. Controlling from Afar: The Daoguang Emperor's Management of the Grand Canal Crisis, 1824-1826. Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996. ISBN 0892641142. Shows the Daoguang Emperor in a competent and effective mode when dealing with a crisis early in his reign.

Pierre-Etienne Will, "Views of the Realm in Crisis: Testimonies on Imperial Audiences in the Nineteenth Century." Late Imperial China 29, no. 1S (2008): 125-59. JSTOR Link. Uses transcripts of imperial audiences to present Daoguang as more a victim of circumstances than the bumbling administrator in many accounts.